It's peak cherry blossom season and the gorgeous trees are highlighted this month in the Library's Free to Use and Reuse sets of copyright-free photographs, prints and illustrations.
One summer night in the White House in 1862, John Nicolay, Lincoln's secretary, wrote his future wife a whimsical letter about how "all bugdom" was swarming his office, attracted by the light of gas lamp.
A conservator at the Library believes she has identified John Wood, an almost forgotten government photographer, as the man who took an iconic image of the first Lincoln inauguration.
This story is adapted from an upcoming story in the Library of Congress Magazine. It recounts the day of July 2, 1881 — 138 years ago — when President James A. Garfield was shot at a train station in Washington and the national drama that ensued. Something about Charles Guiteau wasn’t right — anyone could …
Two hundred years after his birth, Walt Whitman remains a towering figure. The Library of Congress, with the world's largest collection of Whitman's writings, marks the bicentennial with a flurry of events.
It is well known that Dolley Madison rescued a now-iconic portrait of George Washington as she fled the White House on August 24, 1814, just before British troops set fire to Washington, D.C., during the War of 1812. Less well known is exactly what else she managed to take with her amid the chaos of …
This is a guest post by Lee Ann Potter, director of educational outreach. Thirty-five years ago this month, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., was dedicated. Three years later, in 1985, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund donated its records to the Library of Congress. But the National Archives actually plays …